NFL players in Super Bowl driven by chips on their shoulders

Published: Friday, Jan. 31, 2014 11:28 a.m. CST

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Danny Trevathan won’t forget the doubters, no matter how many plays he makes or games he wins.

The linebacker will start in the SuperBowl at age 23, the Denver Broncos’ leading tackler in just his second season in the league. Yet he can still recite the knocks on his pro potential from before the draft, saying he wants to “show them up.”

This is the seemingly contradictory mentality of a successful NFL player — a simultaneous superiority and inferiority complex. To Richard Sherman’s peers, his televised rant moments after the NFC championship game makes perfect sense. These guys require supreme self-assurance to do their job, but they also need motivation to push themselves through the grind of workouts and the strain of games.

“When you’re playing against athletes like this who could really take your head off or really outrun you, if you’re not confident, you ain’t going to last long in this league,” said Sherman’s counterpart on the Seahawks’ defense, linebacker Bobby Wagner. “At the same time, a lot of players, they’ve got a story. Somebody has told them they couldn’t do something, so that’s the chip on their shoulder.”

Real or perceived, past slights can fuel the kind of passionate play it takes to win in a hard-hitting game.